human flow

A stable object is one whose internal and external flows are in balance with one another. In sufficient balance, in any case, to maintain the form and the function ascribed to that object.

A stable human, for instance, is one whose internal flows sustain the stability of its essential parts, so that each is not congested nor malnourished, and retains its own form and exhibits its own function. It is one whose external flows, such as ingestion and excretion, respiration, and the touch of its skin membrane, are in balance with one another, and who is able to perceive changes in its environment, and adjust its own internal flows accordingly.

Note that in the human body, its own components are part of its flows, and just as it daily creates millions of cells with the use of inflowing nutrients and energy, which become the fresh new stewards of the role they are born into, so daily die millions more, becoming raw organic molecules and waste matter that move on to be recycled into other internal flows, or onto the outflow of excretion from the body, a necessary continuous cleansing for the sake of the stability of the bodily system.

The units persiste only inasmuch as they contribute to the healthy development of the whole. They rise and they die quickly, like firefly flashes, yet the group form they uphold together persists, grows, and develops across many generations of these units. So the drop to the river, the cell to the human, the human to culture, and beyond.